24. SOILS 
edy is impracticable to use on a large scale, because 
sufficient quantities of manure cannot be obtained. 
Commercial fertilizers will not do the work for the 
chief reason that they do not contain the humus, and 
organic matter, and for the further reason that the min- 
eral matter in the soil is sufficiently dissolved by coming 
in contact with water and moisture to furnish the needs 
of plant growth. This dissolution is continued in suffi- 
cient amounts to keep up the necessary supply of min- 
erals, and so the adding of commercial fertilizers will not, 
as a rule, add to the supply of plant food in the soil. 
It is said that there is enough nitrogen in the air over 
an acre of ground to grow 75 bushels of corn per acre 
per year for 600,000 years, but the nitrogen is of no 
value to the soil unless it is drawn into it from the air, 
so that the plant in the soil can assimilate it into its sys- 
tem and thus secure the element that makes vigor of 
growth. But soils need humus and organic matter as 
well as nitrogen. 
We are hearing much of the “ Volusia soils,” so named 
from a village in New York where first noticed. 
A writer speaking of these soils says: “ They are 
worn and unproductive, extend from the Hudson river 
westward across the state through Pennsylvania into 
Ohio. Ten million acres, most part too poor to grow 
clover without fertilizers, are unfit for cultivation. They 
once produced good crops; fine old houses and barns 
occupy them, which are now unoccupied. These lands 
dressed with liberal quantities of stable manure produce 
good crops. It is said that if these soils are drained, 
supplied with organic matter and their acidity corrected 
